Studies and Reports

Read the Short-Shifted report here. As the retail industry grows, it is adopting “lean” manufacturing practices to manage a part-time workforce. Retailers’ just-in-time scheduling practices take advantage of sophisticated software and an increasingly desperate workforce to cut labor costs to the bone.

Tackling Unstable and Unpredictable Work Schedules: A Policy Brief on Guaranteed Minimum Hours and Reporting Pay Policies by the Center for Law and Social Policy, Retail Action Project, and Women Employed Imagine if your work schedule changed from week to week or even from day to day, jumping from night shifts to day shifts. Imagine being […]

By: Catherine Ruetschlin With more than 15 million workers in the sector, and leverage over workplace standards across the supply chain, retail wields enormous influence on Americans’ standard of living and the nation’s economic outlook. It connects producers and consumers, workers and jobs, and local social and economic development to the larger US economy. And […]

by: Zaynep Ton, MIT Almost one-fifth of American workers have bad jobs. They endure low wages, poor benefits, schedules that change with little—if any—notice, and few opportunities for advancement. The conventional wisdom is that many companies have no choice but to offer bad jobs—especially retailers whose business models entail competing on low prices. If retailers invest more […]

Download Executive Summary Download Entire Report Retail is one of the fastest growing sectors in the United States and a core part of the New York City economy. A study of 436 frontline retail workers conducted in the fall of 2011 by the Retail Action Project and Stephanie Luce of the City University of New […]